


Lost Dog

by ColdCoffins



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 20:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6209521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdCoffins/pseuds/ColdCoffins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More of the Were-Gas AU. Gascoigne doesn't make it home to transform and Eileen and Viola must go looking for a beastial Gascoigne before he gets into trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“We’re almost home, wee one. Don’ worry now…” 

Father Gascoigne told the bundle of cloth he carried in his arms that was his youngest daughter. It could be considered he was saying these words in a manner of comfort to himself. The sun had set so fast, darkness crept over the tall spiked church tower architecture of central Yharnam so quickly. What was worse, however, was the familiar ache in the root of the hunter’s bones. The moon would rise full tonight. How far was he from home? 

Gascoigne’s boots echoed off the floor of Odeon chapel as he stomped through. The bouncing what would have occurred to his daughter was all that kept him from running. 

“Ah Mr.Father Hunter.” The chapel dweller greeted Gascoigne’s queer scent. The smell of beasts was strong with him tonight. “In a hurry, are ya?”  
  
“Not t’day, dweller.” Gascoigne gave a short passing few words to the dweller. 

“Oh…ok, then. Have a…” The dweller called out to the fading sound of footsteps ascending the deep stair-well to the tomb of Odeon. “…good night.” 

“Daddy?” The light voice of the youngest daughter chirped from her high perch in her father’s arm.  

“Aye, dear?”

“Are…you ok? Mummy won’t be so mad if you’re home late.”   
  
“Ah-heh…” The father chuckled lightly in his throat. “Yer mum’ll have my hide if I’m not home t’night.” 

A light tussle of wind blew through the two. It scattered particles among the dank graves and bare twisted trees in the tomb. Almost there. Almost home. The gust swept aside the dark clouds in the sky, revealing the pale orb of the full moon floating in the cosmos above. Gascoigne did not need eyes to see the moon beams ascend down onto Yharnam. It set something in him ablaze and a deep pain seared through his frame. The hunter stopped, releasing a wind-knocking breath as if he was punched squarely in the chest. His legs buckled, his daughter suddenly becoming very heavy. 

“Daddy!” The young girl cried out before she was placed upon the ground. Her towering father was now on his knees. His hand clutched his chest. He girl could have sworn black claws poked their tips through her fathers bandaged gloves. 

“I’m ok, love. We…need t’hurry home–” He crumpled again with a strained gasp. No, he wasn’t going to make it home. He could hear his bones creaking and feel his muscles pulsing under his skin. The hunter’s heart beat thundered in his ears and the scent of his daughter…his daughter’s blood, was becoming more potent in his nose. 

“What should I do?” The girl already knew at this point her father would not be making it home tonight. She might be alone in the darkness and dangers of central Yharnam. “Daddy…I’m scared…” 

“Don’t…don’t be scared, now.” Gascoigne told his daughter in pained breaths. He was on his hands and knees now, his fists clenched. The claws on his fingers broke the skin beneath them and drew blood. “Go…get y’moth’r…Go!”  
  
The young girl nodded before turning and fleeing through the gate, down the stairs of the tomb. She knew the way home. She would get her mom. Mommy would know what to do, she always does. Daddy can’t make it home to change, will you find him mommy? The young girl pleaded hard. Make her fly, make her a bird. Make her hurry home–

“Young one?” 

The young daughter nearly tripped. Her prayers had been answered. A bird did appear. 

“Why’re y’out alone so late young one?” The dark leather-coated feathered figure of Eileen The Crow stepped from a foggy alley way. Her ivory beak caught the cool light of the moon. “Where’s your father?” 


	2. Chapter 2

Viola placed a lily next to a purple flower in the vase on the window of her home. The hunter’s wife had been finding activities to be done near the chained, barred windows of the home. She wanted to remain where she could get a quick glance outside into Yharnam. She wanted to look for her husband, his familiar tall, dark frame approaching the house. Viola had only seen hunting parties pass her windows. The men looking like an nightmarish mix of long limbs and beast fur. They dragged their axes and muttered their curses.

Viola kept the incense burning bright. 

Yet she had not seen her hunter. It was late…the nightly hunt had begun. As long as their daughter was with her father, Viola knew she was safe. 

Viola turned her eyes to the full moon in the sky. A worried sigh rattled her frame before she parted the curtain to the window one last time. Someone was approaching. A feather garbed figure with a small shadow trailing after it. 

Viola hurried to the door, undoing the many chains and locks to open it to the outsiders. 

“Eileen! Thank the gods, its you.” Viola gave a relieved smile. 

“Mummy!” The cry of her youngest daughter brought Viola to her knees. The young girl threw herself into her mother’s embrace. 

“Oh my little one…” Viola held her daughter close before looking to the crow hunter. “Is Gascoigne with you, Eileen? He hasn’t come home…”  
  
“Something ain’t right, Miss Viola.” Eileen folded her arms. The scent of herbs wafted gently from the crow. “It’s not like the man to leave his children to wander Yharnam alone.” 

“No, not at all.” Viola’s grip tightened on her child before she looked at the young girl. “Young one, head up to bed with your sister.”  
  
“Are you going to go find Daddy?”   
  
“Yes. Miss Eileen and I are going to find your father and bring him home. Now, up to bed.” She released the girl from her arms, giving her a gentle guiding push in the direction of the home’s stairs. The two women watched the small child climb the stairs before returning to each other’s attention. 

“I’m going with you.” Viola told the crow. 

“Oh? You’re sure now? Miss Viola the hunt is on…and beast men will not spare you nor recognize you as human. You do have children to think of.” Eileen said this plainly. She would not stop the wife from coming with her, in fact, if anyone would be able to calm Gascoigne in his new state, it would be Viola. Yet…it would be cruel to leave the children parentless. 

“We’ll be together won’t we?” Viola briefly moved away from the crow. She took up the pistol kept by the fireplace and grabbed the hand lantern from the corner doorframe. 

“Aye, we will.”  
  
“Then we will brave the night. And bring home my foolish husband.” 

Viola shut the door to her home. The night air greeted her with a soft gust and the smell of hunting fires smoldering. She briefly placed her hand on the wooden door and thought of her two girls inside. 

“Come now, Miss Viola. We should hurry, lest the fool get himself into more of a blunder.” Eileen said with a sweep of her feathered garb. She guided Viola out into the moonlight city. 


	3. Chapter 3

“Miss Viola…” Eileen hushed her tone. “He’s here. I can assure ye.” 

Eileen lifted her hand from claw marks carved into the cobblestone of an abode. A fine trail of blood lined the path, much like a crimson brush stroke against a canvas. Thick fog rose from man-hole covers on the alley streets. Chained coffins lines crevices and blocked abandoned doorways. The sound of maddened, drunken laughter would occasionally seep through the thick wooden and metal bolted frames of homes. 

“You’re sure?” Viola asked, she raised the lantern in her hand in an attempt to light through the fog in the alleyway. 

“Aye, I’ve tracked my fair share of hunters. …Human or not.” Eileen responded. 

A sound hissed down the alley to meet the women’s ears. The click of claws on stone and the harsh, rattled breaths of inflated lungs in a protruded sternumed chest. 

“Gascoigne…?” Viola called out in caution. 

The steps quickened their pace. The clicks and clacks drawing nearer. 

A blur of long limbs and sewny stringed fur as a plagued beast-man leapt forward from the fog. Viola saw his elongated yellow teeth flash in the moonlight as he raised one of his cleavers in his hand lined with chipped claws for nails. Perhaps had his arms not grown so long he wouldn’t have been able to reach the hunters wife. But now…

Viola flinched at an explosion of gunpowder and feathers beside her. Eileen with unnatural grace leapt into action, gun raised to stun the creature. Her blade now drawn, dully shimmered in the lantern light. 

“Run Viola!” Elieen called out as she took a slash at the man-beast. Her blade now shimmering in crimson hue. 

Viola turned on her heels and took off in the opposite direction down the alley. Her lungs were filled with panic breaths. She held the lantern out infront of her, hoping the light would be her friend in his moment. Please, let her find a way to safety, to hide somewhere. Viola pressed her back to the corner wall outside of a stone house. Beside the home should could hear the scratching and movement of penned animals kept by the inhabitants. She breathed deep, closing her eyes briefly. 

A weight was in her other hand. The pistol. The weapon she had taken for a moment like this. Viola tightened her fingers around the hold and the cold metal trigger. Eileen wasn’t here now. She would defend herself. She raised the weapon to firing height and swiftly left her place of cover, pointing the firearm to her front. Nothing. 

A sound she had missed during her panic had become apparent. A gushing, gnawing sound. The penned animals had gone oddly quiet. 

Behind her. 

Viola felt an immense bloodlust behind her. 

The feeling of being in the presence of a predator. 

Viola whipped around, finger ready on the pistol’s trigger-bracing herself physically for the blast of the gun. 

She did not fire. A familiar black church hunter’s grab was in front of her. It was stretched over a hunched figure too big for it now. Splashes of blood gleamed off the leather in her lantern light. A mane of wild grey hair frayed from its head. 

“Gascoigne…?” Her husbands name barely escaped her lips. 

The beast paused its actions. It turned, looking over its shoulder. 

Viola saw her husband’s face marred into a beastly form. The sides of his mouth stretched and torn at the flesh to make room for more teeth and an enlarged jaw. His hooked nose was over a set of mixed human and beastial teeth.  Crimson was smeared across his mouth and died in his overgrown beard. In his hands was clutched the mangled half-devoured body of some unfortunate creatures that was once penned for its safety. 

“Oh…Gascoigne…”  


	4. Chapter 4

Who was there…?  
Oh it is Viola. 

Viola was here. Viola was a good thing. Viola was…precious. 

The daughter? He had a daughter. Yes. He did something…bad. He left her alone. It was a baD thIng. Viola was seeing him now. He was a sIck CreAtUre now. He had done a bad thing. He…was doing a bAd thing…right now.    

The creature Gascoigne had been preying on dropped from his hands with a sickening slap on the stone paved ground. He breathed raggidly, his breath thickened in the night air. His hands twitched ever so slightly.       

A sIcK CrEatUre. 

Gascoigne brought his talon tipped fingers to his frayed mane of hair, clutching his head. So much noise, so much static was going on under his skull. As if his brain had swelled and the hot scourge blood running through it pulsed sickly in his mind.  How he wanted to say something, do something. Something hUmAn. He was not human now. 

“Gascoigne…my hunter…” Viola said softly. She took small steps towards her husband. Her poor hunter. “Gascoigne it is alright. We’re going home…” 

Viola looked over her beastly hunter. Scratches and claw marks had torn at his garb and flesh. As if he previously struggled to retain his human form for awhile longer before loosing his coherent mind. Viola frown and kneeled by her husband placing a  small hand on his monstrous own as he clutched his head. She only wanted to protect him from what he would do on nights like this. 

“My hunter, we’re going home now.” Viola spoke as one would to an animal to keep it calm. Softly…slowly. “Its alright, all is well.”  
  


Viola felt his hands unwind under her own. She worked to untangle his fingers from his mane of grey hair and release the claws from digging into his scalp. Viola looked up at the sound of foot steps approaching. Eileen’s feathered silhouette emerged from the thick shadows. Her garb was spattered in red that reflected off Viola’s dimming lantern light. 

“Iy see y’found him.” Eileen commented. 

“Yes…”  
  
“We’ll bring him outside Odeon Chapel. We’re too far from your home now, th’ streets are dangerous Miss Viola. We’ll wait until dawn breaks.” Eileen put a hand on the shoulder of the Yharnam wife. “Y’ve done good, Miss Viola. Lets get th’oaf on his feet.” 

Viola took one of her hunter’s hand as she stood. She guided him into a standing position, where the beastly man towered over the two women.  Viola stroked the top of Gascoigne’s hand gently, over the stretched bloodied bandages. The beast hunter panted openly, his gaping maw hanging open and breath chilling into the air. No doubt with the torn muscle tissue he had trouble keeping his jaws shut. 

“Lead the way, Eileen. We will follow.” Viola told the hunter of hunters. 

“Follo’ me now. Thats it…” Eileen announced more to Gascoigne then Viola. The feathered hunter was known as friend by the beast that was now Gascoigne. She very much wished to keep it that way.


	5. Chapter 5

Viola leaned on the stone arch stairwell exit to Odeon chapel. The incense inside the sanctuary burned bright from its many large clay pots. The chapel was filled with a warming glow of safety. Yet, Viola could not bring herself to retreat fully inside of the church building. Viola watched her hunter outside in the circular stone paved square. He had curled himself next to a gravestone, head resting between his hands. 

He very much resembled an old hound, laying himself on the front doorstep of a home waiting to come in for the night. 

Viola looked over to Eileen. The crow had been very quiet upon their arrival. She had taken a seat near one of the mournful statues in the chapel. The hunter of hunters made notes quietly in a small leather bound book she kept on her person. 

“Y’should come away from the exit arches, miss.” The chapel dweller first told Viola. “Th’ beasts might still have reach to you there.” 

Viola thanked the dweller for his concern, but she felt no beast would attempt to reach her from her current spot. 

How long the night was. Viola could not bring herself to sleep, despite the nudging from Eileen that the hunter would wake her when the dawn broke. Viola was too restless thinking about how she would explain to her own hunter the details of tonight. His memory was always fuzzy afterwards, but he could recall certain flashes or moments from his beastly transformations. 

Viola also thought of her daughters. Home alone tonight. She prayed for their sleep to be undisturbed and deep. May their dreams be pleasant ones. 

The sky had begun to take on the violet hue of morning. The clearing of the pungent darkness beginning to melt away and retreat to the shadows of tomorrow. Viola was alerted to the sound of pain from her hunter outside. 

Gascoigne had begun to convulse and double-over on his hands and knees. Horrible choking sounds escaped his throat along with flecks of spittle. His stretched coat began to collapse and fold around his shrinking frame. 

“Eileen…!” Viola called out to the crow who looked up from her journal. She shut it hastily, grabbing a tarp of cloth with her before rising to follow Viola out of the chapel. 

The two women approached a lump of leather coat and fabric laying on the stone ground in the circle square composed of scattered grave heads. Viola carefully reached out and pulled back the torn used garb to see her now human husband. She was unable to hide a breath of relief before she took side of one of her husband’s scarred shoulders. 

“Eileen, help me prop him up until he’s more conscious to stand…” 

Gascoigne was naturally too large for the Yharnam wife to lift on her own. Eileen took the husband’s other should and together they rested his frame on the front of a grave stone head. Eileen offered Viola the tarp of cloth to drape around Gascoigne’s mostly naked frame. As his stretched garb was now slacking off of the hunter when moved. 

Viola sighed…requesting dark hunters garb from the healing church would no doubt rise suspicion among them. However, she could at least patch up his shawl another few times before it disintegrated to ribbons. 

Gascoigne snapped to awakening suddenly as if coming out of a bad dream. His head turned wildly in confusion before being steadied by Viola’s palms. 

“Shh..my hunter.” Viola cooed. “It is dawn now. We are going home.”   
  
Gascoigne breathed harshly for a moment before reaching a hand up to hold one of his wife’s. He brought it to his lips and held her hand in a passionate gesture of need. He was still unaware of the blood on his own mouth and beard. 

“Forgive me…Iy…” He grumbled out lowly, trying to focus his words. 

“Shh…don’t speak now. Eileen and I are going to help you to the chapel. We’ll head home when you are well enough to walk. The girls are in bed. All is well.” Viola told her hunter softly. 

Eileen took an arm of the large hunter around her should and Viola took the other arm around her own shoulder. The two women helped Gascoigne up the chapel arch way steps inside. 

“…th’ smell stings…” Gascoigne growled wincing slightly as the scent of incense curated in his nose upon entering the chapel.  

“Too bad now.” Eileen commented. “Enough of your cryin’, you’ll be on your own feet soon enough.” 

“Eileen…? You…brought my girl home?” Gascoigne asked the crow, his words still slow. 

“Aye, I did. The poor thing was shakin’. But she’s such a brave young girl. She gets it from her moth’r.”   
  
Viola smiled in return to Eileen at the comment. How grateful she was to the crow at this moment. 

“Oh…its…” The dweller raised his head as the trio entered further in the chapel. “The Father Hunter? Oh I’m glad you made it through the night safely sir! Ah hah hah heh….heh….” He sniffed. “Why’s it smell like beasts in here?”  
  
“Don’t you worry, dweller.” Viola told the blind chapel keeper. She smiled to herself at her husbands obvious frown at the words.  “My husband has been hunting this night. He currently carries the scent with him.”   
  
“Ah…” The dweller said. “Well still…glad you lot are all safe…” 

Eileen the Viola sat Gascoigne down in a corner of the shelter. He held his head in one of his hands, covering the bandages that barely stayed over his eyes. 

“Tell me…what happened this night.” He paused. “I taste blood on my tongue…dare I not know?”  
  
Viola looked to Eileen. The crow hunter’s face was hidden behind her beak mask, yet the Yharnam wife could feel her sympathy. 

“My hunter…do not worry your mind. It was nothing of grave consequence. A home may just be missing afew counts of livestock now.” She told him before she kissed his forehead. 


End file.
